twin skeletons
by bleuboxes
Summary: Ghost AU: When The Doctor receives a mysterious message telling him to come to an old Victorian manor house, he finds something (or someone) that really shouldn't exist. She's dead, but she's there talking and living and breathing right in front of him - she's impossible.
1. Chapter 1

_A birth and a death on the same day_  
_And honey I only appear so I can fade away_  
_ I wanna throw my hands in the air and scream_  
_ And I can just die laughing on your spiral of shame_

**_Twin Skeletons (Hotel in NYC) - Fall Out Boy_**

* * *

She hadn't been this excited a decade. Well, she was rater excited when her sister's family (the brats) moved out of the house that trapped her spirit. But, this news was even better; someone new was moving in.

She would have someone to take care of her house and she would have someone to follow around and someone to protect instead of piss off. Who knows? Maybe her new roomie will be a hot guy or something.

_Today is the day_, she thought as she passed through the bathroom wall and glided down the stairs with an eerie grace so that she could wait in anticipation for her new house buddy. Her thoughts were running a million miles per minute – maybe he would be a special one, like those ghost adventurers, that were able to sense and speak to spirits like her. Maybe he was a pansy and would freak out if she accidentally dropped something that she was planning on pranking him with. (She wasn't sure why she thought her house mate was a man, she just had that assumption). Or, who knows, maybe he was going to be an asshole and she was just going to have a pleasurable old time torturing him, just as she had done to her sister and her sister's family. (Though, she was always nice to her niece, who was a sweetheart, much unlike her mother)

Although she liked remaining in a distant relationship with humanity, she was trapped in a huge blue house all by herself untill god knows when. She wasn't the happiest with her lonely, semi-transparent state. (Thought it did have its perks. Please see the sentence about hot guys)

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While she was busy thinking about the grave situation of her being a ghost (and dead), she almost didn't hear the smashing of a car door or the key turning in the doorknob's lock. She looked over at the door while it was hesitantly being cracked open; behind it stood a young looking man who looked like he was cosplaying a Victorian person from a novel. (However, his attire did go well with the theme of the house, which was a Victorian manor house in the country.)

She moved closer to him to get a better look; he had a nice looking face (she couldn't lie; well she could, but she rarely lied about good looking men). Unfortunately, he was seriously lacking in the eyebrow department, but he made up for it with the chin. (God, you could commit a murder with that thing). His chin didn't even seem human – it was the size of the cosmos. She couldn't help but burst out laughing at this ridiculous looking man!

As she tried not to fall through the couch, she noticed that his ears perked up and his brow was brought together to form a line of concentration. It looked as if he was trying to hear something that wasn't exactly _there_. She stopped (or tried to stop) laughing so she could see what he was going to do. He didn't do anything but move his left hand to his right pocket (out of habit she supposed). But, besides that, he just carried on regularly, as if he hadn't heard a thing.

He brought in a few boxes filled with his junk and created three heaping (okay that was an exaggeration) piles of boxes. She sat on one and watched him start to unpack his belongings. He was peculiar; there was something about him that she liked. She just wasn't sure what it was quite yet.

Could it be that she liked how he seemed to have this aura of elegant clumsiness around him (she watched him trip at least twelve times in four hours) or the tiny bits of arrogance that escaped when he straightened his somewhat annoying but still adorable bow tie? Was it because he was different, because she was bored of ordinary – she had been seeing that for the past ten years.

The things that he unpacked from the boxes looked like a bunch of space junk. (Maybe he was a collector or something) When the sun began to set, he flicked on the television that looked like it was from nineteen ninety-four which he had set up just moments before. He put on the local news program and ate some Jammy Dodgers (which he also unpacked moments before. She was starting to think that this man had a slight problem – there were many packages of Jammy dodgers in those boxes) When the program ended, he dug through another box to pull out a book on advanced quantum mechanics, which he carried over the single chair remaining in the house (that was her chair from when she was alive and well and breathing…) He proceeded to sit down, finding a comfortable reading position (oxymoron) to read his science nerd book. (She was seriously starting to reconsider his being a collector; maybe he was some sort of engineer)

He drifted off to sleep quietly as he neared page four hundred and seventy-two. His head lolled to the left side and book closed suddenly as his hands became relaxed and almost weightless. She continued to watch him (my, she had been doing a lot of that lately…) and she smiled. It was strange; she enjoyed watching people sleep as a pastime because she was stripped of that wonderful pleasure. She dug through four boxes until she found a blanket, which she attempted to pull over him (She knows that her house can be quite drafty; her snob of a sister never shut up about it).

"_Good night, Stranger"_, she whispered even though she knew he wasn't able to hear her. "You know, I really need to find out what your name is." She muttered to herself. While he was still sleeping, she decided that it wouldn't be invading his personal life if she continued to rummage through his stuff (in hopes that she would be able to find out more about this man).

In the box that she was sitting on for the longest time, there were pictures of him with a red haired woman and a man with a _great_ nose. There was another of him with a woman whose hair was as crazy as her great aunt Shirley. There were countless other photographs of young and old men with many different women (extended family?)

In another box, there were weird machines that she had never seen before. The most obscure of them all was some sort of screwdriver thing that looked less like a screwdriver and more like something else (if you catch her drift). She picked up the strange looking gadget. And for the first time in a while, she struggled to pick up an object with her not so fully solid hands.

"I'm going mad." She muttered, "You're a fucking _ghost,_ Clara, your whole being is madness." She flipped the thing around a few times and found a button; her curiosity got the best of her and she pressed it, bracing for the worst.

"WHAT THE FUCK!" she screamed as the machine made a loud ratchet noise that scared her half to death (Joke's on you, she's already dead). She dropped the machine and it hit the ground with a loud clop. Scared that he was going to be awakened, she scurried to hide behind a pile of unpacked boxes. He bolted awake (it almost looked like he was never really sleeping) and went to turn on the nearest lamp. He seemed a little confused on how the blanket that was covering him got there, but that didn't stop him from getting up and finding that weird looking thing that made hideous noises when you pushed a button.

He started mumbling to himself about how he ought to be more careful with his sonic screwdriver – apparently it was an ancient relic. (Maybe he was a mechanic that was also a collector?)

"What are you?" he questioned the screwdriver (to be honest, she was asking herself the same thing), "it says you are human, but it also says there are no other humans here, well no beings, actually." He sighed and gave him a quizzical look. "Now I'm talking to myself, a screwdriver, and someone that isn't here; I really need some new friends."

She hovered to sit on top of one of the boxes where she swung her ghostly legs back and forth like a little (alive) innocent child. "Oh, don't you know, stranger, talking to yourself is a sure sign of madness."

"I'm going mad – properly and completely loony." He said just after she finished. She stood agape at what he said; it was as if he was listening to her but he wasn't at the same time, but whatever it was, it was weird and she didn't want it to happen again. As she stood up, she knocked over the box that she had been sitting on. He zoomed around in her direction, pointing the screwdriver (and having it make that hideous noise). She soared up towards the ceiling, not wanting to stay but not wanting to leave either.

"I know you're here; I don't why you are or what you are, but you were powerful enough to leave me a message on my psychic paper."

"What?" she said to no one in particular.

"and what does 'she killed the star' even mean?" he asked. If she could, she would have grown even paler at those words. She needed to get in contact with this man, but she wasn't sure how. She remembered spotting twenty-four of the same colored blue crayons in a box and she could write in his quantum mechanics book (because who in their right mind reads about quantum mechanics).

She floated to the box and dug loudly through it, trying to attract his attention and find the blue crayons.

"Now I'm going to have to pick up this mess. Thank you!" he complained. She made her way over to him with her newly found blue crayon and wacked him with it.

"Oww…"

"Serves you right." She huffed. She walked over to his book for science geeks and opened it, looking for a semi-blank page. He ran over to the book that seemed to be holding itself up in midair and grabbed it right out of her transparent hands.

"Hey!" she yelled even though she knew he couldn't hear her.

"No, no, no! Don't use this – this is important!" he said as he scramble over to another box and pulled out a piece of paper and scrambled over to the floating blue crayon, "use this instead; it's a revolutionary war relic, but you know, you have got to sacrifice some things for the sake of knowledge."

She took the paper forcibly out of his hands. It was singed at the edges and stained an awful tea like color, but it would function.

_Hello_, she wrote on the paper. He looked at it.

"Hello, I'm the doctor."

_I'm Clara._

"Clara, Clara, Clara," he said as if he was testing her name out (she can't imagine why), "that's a nice name; you should definitely keep it."

_Thanks… I guess._

"Why can't I see you?"

_Well part of it may be that I'm a ghost, but I'm just throwing out suggestions._

"Can you speak while I sonic you? Hold up the crayon."

_Hold up – nobody's sonicing anybody. Who the hell are you? What the hell is a sonic and why the hell did you move into a giant Victorian manor house all by yourself?_

"I'm the Doctor, time traveling alien with two hearts. This," he held up the screwdriver, "is a sonic screwdriver and I moved into this house tentatively because you sent me a message to come here. Now start talking."

_Okay. I'll talk about shit now and ask questions later, time boy._

She started talking about Star Wars and kittens and couches and her niece who was such a nice little four year old and rubber ducks and she just talked to herself like she had been doing for the past ten years of her afterlife. She didn't even realize that he was pointing the sonic screwdriver at her; she didn't hear him say that she could stop talking now because she was giving him a headache. She didn't realize that he could see her now.

"CLARA!" he shouted loudly.

"WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLY WANT!" she shouted back.

"Not so loud, please! Goodness! I can't believe that worked! This is so exciting!"

"What?"

"Clara, I made the sonic find your vocal emissions, it was like you were trapped in a pocket universe-"

"English please." She asked, "Wait, you can hear me?"

"Yes, as I was saying, I pulled you more into this universe; you're still a 'ghost' but you're more solid, or stable whatever you want to call it, and your voice is able to function in this sense of reality."

"Am I able to sleep now?" she asked.

"No."

"Can I eat?"

"No."

"So you're a space man, like, from a different planet?"

"Yeah, you okay with that?"

"Doctor, I'm a fucking _ghost_. You're an alien; nothing would surprise me at this point in the afterlife."

"Okay, well, good."

"And you're okay with rooming with a ghost?"

"Eh, I've had worse roommates."

"That made me feel _so_ much better, let me tell you."

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**AN: Hello! Someone suggested that I start a new multi-chapter story. Let me tell you, I brainstormed all weekend, and all I could think about was GHOST AU, so Ghost AU happened.**

**I'm seriously really busy with play practice and I don't think I'm going to be able to update my one-shot series this weekend, I'm sorry *cringes and runs away***

**So please review (if you liked it and want to see more) favorite (if you liked it and want to see more) and follow (if you liked it and want to see more) because hey, who knows, if I have the time and the inspiration, I may get up another chapter in lickety-split!**

**-bleuboxes**


	2. Chapter 2

Just because she was now visible and was actually audible to her house mate did not mean that Clara Oswald was done goofing around with the house's inhabitant. If anything, it was going to make her pull more practical jokes than ever before and she was _very_ enthusiastic about that. The Doctor, on the other hand, was on the opposite side of the spectrum.

"Reaching through the bathroom wall and turning the hot water cold while I was _in the shower _is an all new low for you." He scolded. She rolled her eyes, not really caring about anything he had to say, "I came here to help you – to save you, and all I get is glitter glue in my socks, where the _hell_ did that even come from, rat tails in my bed, and a _freezing cold shower._" He finished, out of breath.

"Well, if you think I'm going to act all damsel in distress-y, you got me all wrong, chin. I hate to break it to you, but I was doing just dandy here all by myself; I didn't send you that creepy message; you must have gotten the wrong address or something." She replied with frustration.

"You are _impossible_, you know that?" he said as he turned to stomp up the stairs like the child that he was.

"Okay, _Doctor,_" she sneered, "I would much rather be impossible than ridiculous. Although, that whole _I'm acting like a child because I'm actually really sad_ get up is working for you."

"You don't know the slightest thing about me, Clara Oswald; I have seen the things from your nightmares – I have seen so many terrible, terrible things."

"Thanks, Chin, really appreciate that." She said. He ignored her.

"What I don't understand is who sent me the message; it's quite obvious that you didn't, unless you're being ignorant and lying because you're embarrassed that you needed help, but I don't think that's the case. You died, Clara, and whatever secret you're keeping is trapping your spirit here. It's something important – something so important that I got a message about it on the psychic paper…" He said from upstairs where he was organizing his thoughts aloud. She wandered up the stairs in a phantom-like fashion with anger breaking in her head like tidal waves.

She didn't think about her death; it was her unspoken rule. It was scandalous and treacherous on its own and her days as a specter did not need to be haunted by such a grave matter such as that.

"If there is one thing I don't do, Doctor, it is talk about how I died. That part is better left unsaid; the past is in the past and that's how it ought to stay."

"But it _is_ important, Clara; it's vital to know how you died." He sighed, "It could help me save you."

"And what god would that do? I'd still be dead; you can't just un-kill me." She responded.

"You could travel the Universe with me – I could show you wonders!" he said like an excited child. He looked like he was in a trance. He must not have understood; she was dead and that's how she was going to stay, no matter how much she wished she could change that.

"Doctor," she tried again, "I died, I'm sorry but there is nothing you or I can do to change that fact. I'm dead and I'm afraid that's how I'm going to stay."

"But, Clara, you and me could travel everywhere in time and space! Isn't that worth a little hope of redemption?" he pleaded his case once more, because just like her, he didn't think that she understood how desperate he was to get her to understand. (She ignored him; she couldn't afford to think so optimistically.)

"I'm sure you could show me _wonders_, Chin boy, but my god, we've only known each other for a good two days. It's a bit early to be hooking up with spirits now, isn't it?"

"Are you insinuating something?" he asked innocently.

"Lil ole me? _Never_! Why, Doctor, say it like that and dead girls may think you've got _ideas"_

"Are you accusing me of having no moral –"

"No. Absolutely not." He looked at her, appalled that a young (dead) woman would ever say such a thing, "What? Cat got your tongue?"

"Clara," he said aghast, "I don't know who the hell you think I am but I highly offended at your accusations!"

"Chill, Chin, _chill;_ god, I was just joking around. Don't get your panties in a twist."

"You shouldn't joke about that stuff. I would never treat you that way. Gosh, Clara, wonders – you know, like the stars and other planets and solar systems; not, um, _that._" He stood there looking so sorry and embarrassed and she couldn't help but feel a little bad for poking fun at him. She couldn't believe that she was actually thinking about apologizing.

"Sorry." She muttered quietly, though she did find it a _tiny_ bit hilarious about how embarrassed he was when talking about this subject. (She could even say that he looked a little adorable when the blush cascaded from his cheeks to his rocket ears).

"Maybe we could play a game or something." He suggested.

"Like what?"

"Chess is a lot of fun. My people happened to have invented it and I happen to be a chess wizard." He said like a proud mother.

"Thanks but no thanks." She said, "I'm just gonna go watch tele or something."

"You'll be missing out." He said with a smile.

"Sure." She sad laughing and rolling her eyes.

That really hit her hard; it was the first time she had laughed in years. Well, she had laughed when she made her sisters family feel miserable, but that laugh was malicious and spiteful; this one was whole and happy. She felt happy, she felt like she was alive for the first time in decades. And maybe she wanted to be alive again; he could help her – he said he could, he swore.

He said he would show her the Universe – all the planets all the stars all the wonders and cosmos ad maybe she wanted that instead of the old and creaky interior of the house that she grew up and died in. Maybe she would tell him; maybe she would let him know how and why she died, or maybe not. But for a pessimist, she was pretty optimistic about the matter.

As he turned to go to his (messy) room, and as she turned to descend down the stairs, she called out to him.

"Doctor?"

"Yeah?"

"I'll try."

"Try to what?"

"Tell you about how, you know, I uh died."

"Clara, I don't want you to do anything you're not comfortable with."

"But that's it; I'm not content with being dead; I want to feel alive and I want to see the stars. And I think what I want most of all is a friend." She admitted.

"Well, that's what I am." He said with a smile and he straightened his blue bowtie, "Clara's friend. I quite like the sound of that."

She cracked a grin. Maybe he was right, maybe she did need a little help. And though it pained her to admit it, he was just the help she was looking for.

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**AN: Chapter 2 is a go! I'm trying to get to the plot so this is a bit of a filler, I'm sorry. It's also quite short but you get what you get and I like the finished product. (I hope you do too!)**

**Thank you for all the lovely reviews and favorites and follows! I appreciate feedback very much.**

**So, if you would, please follow and favorite and review because it makes me very happy and it will help me decide when to update this story (which has like 7 different directions.)**

**Thank you guys all so much *blows kisses***

**bleuboxes**


	3. Chapter 3

If one thing was for sure, the Doctor had very weird sleeping habits. He would stay up with her for weeks at a time (she was a ghost; she did not need to sleep) then just collapse for hours at a time. It was weird, but strangely comforting that he was almost always there to keep her company.

She liked watching him sleep, she wasn't sure why, but it was peaceful and tranquil to see the man that never stops moving stay in one place for such an amount of time. She would usually help tidy up his stuff and she would hear the almost inaudible snores coming from the resting being in the other room. It was nice.

It had been two months since he moved into the manor house trying to save who ever had sent him that mysterious note, and he wasn't any closer to saving whoever the hell it was now than he was when he first arrived. She was still in the process of warming up to him, he was a new face, still, and she wasn't really that articulate on the social interaction part of being a not-fully ghost.

She was trying, though. She was attempting to tell him, she just wasn't sure how to tell him the exact details, because her death wasn't too squeaky clean. She could tell him the straight forward way or the roundabout way, both not pleasant, to say the least. He was her friend, and she knew that she should trust him with this stuff, but she didn't want him to look at her any differently if he learned the truth about her death. She was no saint, that's for sure, and though she did some very dreadful things, she didn't deserve the punishment of death.

"Oh, Doctor," she sighed to the sleeping man, "what am I ever going to tell you?" she waited a second, waiting for him to barge through the living room and into the kitchen, asking her what in the name of some weird creature she had never even heard of before she was going on about. But that didn't happen, and for that she was a tiny bit disappointed but grateful.

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She went back in to check on him; he was still lightly snoring and a little drool had started to run down his face. She giggled at the notion; she hadn't seen someone drool in years. (She's going to bust him about this for the rest of his life if she can) She sighed, wishing that she could take a well overdue nap.

"You lucky bastard" she muttered to him, even though she knew that he wasn't listening. She wondered where his mind was now; he was probably on some made up planet or some long dead ex-girlfriend's place. (She doesn't know why, but the thought about ex-girlfriends makes her angry) She doesn't feel the rom become cold around her. She doesn't see the Doctor spring out of sleep. She doesn't hear him when he asks if she's alright. She hates to admit it, so she doesn't; she denies that she's jealous. She denies that she would be disappointed if he saved other women just like he claimed to come to save her.

She knew that he did, with such a long life time it's very hard to not be saving (dead) damsels in distress. And she realizes that she's being stupid and selfish, and the last time that happened she got herself killed. She calms herself down, and it's only then does she notice that he's shaking her and shouting to her with worry evident in his voice.

"Doctor?" she asks, "Why are you shaking me. I'm alright."

"Clara, you just made the temperature drop thirty degrees. It's freezing in here now! Something is not okay! You can tell me; I'm your friend."

"What?"

"You made the temperature drop just now when you were standing there looking as if you've seen a villain!" he said, trying not to push her over the edge.

"I swear I don't know what happened." She lied with a fake look of terror on her face. She wasn't going to tell him of what she had been thinking. That would just be embarrassing. (Though, knowing his childish tendencies, he might possibly be more embarrassed than her if she did happen to spill the beans on herself. But, she wasn't going to take that chance)

"Well," he deducted, "Whatever you were thinking about must have made you angry enough to make the room go below freezing." Damn right, thinking about him and ex-girlfriends made her angry (She wasn't exactly sure why) but she had something, or someone, else that made her just as angry as that – her sister.

"I was thinking about my sister." She lied through her teeth in a low faint whisper.

"Sister?" he asked, then stopped, "If this is about your death, I don't want to push you, Clara. I don't want you to feel like I'm forcing you to do anything."

"You're not forcing me to do anything." She responded then continued, "Oswin Oswald-Pink, the younger sister of the late Clara Oswald, is a bitch. She was younger by a year, and she tormented me throughout my childhood. My parents hated her, my grandparents hated her, but I always somehow managed to have faith in her; I thought there was some sort of goodness in her." Clara laughed, "Well, when I was seventeen, I caught my boyfriend, Danny Pink, cheating on me with her, and I lost it. I hit him over the head with a lamp, which gave him a mild concussion, but that asshole deserved it, and I picked up a pair of scissors off the floor, whatever the hell they were doing there beats me, and I want to stab her. She had always been the stronger one, so I failed. But she does have an ugly ass scar on her face now."

He was sort of looking at her like she was some sort of rare tropical disease, but the tiny smile told her that he was sort of enjoying her _Get To Know Me! _Story.

"My parents didn't really care too much that I tried to kill her, honestly, the looks my dad gave me when the cops brought me home looked like something of pride." The doctor snorted.

"She was that bad?"

"She's the devil, I swear." She laughed, "So the next year, I stayed in my room and she didn't come to visit me once. That was probably the best year of my life. She visited me on my eighteenth birthday though, that was strange; she had an apology cake and everything. I let her in and we had a great day. The cake was fucking delicious, I shit you not. She asked me to look at the stars with her on the roof. I was suspicious, but she had never been this nice to me before, and it was my birthday, so I was like _what the hell."_

"Then what happened?" he asked, he looked as if he was on the edge of his seat; the suspense was killing him.

"We looked at the stars for a bit, and it was actually really nice. I told her how much I liked it and it was one of the best birthdays I had ever had. Then she stared laughing manically and picked me up. Oswin started telling me about how much she hated me, blah blah blah, something about how she was pissed that she wasn't getting any of the inheritance because she was such a bitch that even her own parents hated her, she blamed that on me; I wasn't sure why, and then she threw me off the roof and I smashed my head in when I hit the ground. The end."

"How isn't she in prison?" he asked.

"She told the authorities it was suicide."

"God, Clara, That's terrible."

"I tormented her every day from the grave while she was here though, so that sort of makes up for it."

"I don't understand why you're here." He said and sighed.

"Me neither, Chin. Those church people promised me paradise and all I got is this huge ass house."

He gave her a hug and her heart, which still beat for some odd reason, jumped a bit.

"We'll figure this out, Clara." He whispered and kissed the top of her head, which wasn't doing her heart any good, "I promise."

And she knows that he's making a promise that's going to be very difficult for him to keep.

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**LONG TIME NO SEE!**

**im really sorry I haven't been able to update this in a while. There most likely wont be an update this weekend, its Tech(hell) week in the play that im in and that means I wont get home till like 12 every night then I have shows this weekend and the next so I don't know, don't expect another update for two weeks. could be less could be more, it all depends on my schedule. **

**Please review and favorite and follow because it lets me know if its even worth writing this weird ass piece of fiction. **

**bleuboxes**


	4. Chapter 4

It's only been three months since he's 'moved' in with her and she can't keep herself from getting this weird feeling (were ghosts even supposed to get these romantic attractions?) whenever he makes these little boy smiles at her, or anything for that matter.

She was becoming a typical woman, and that was scaring her.

It wasn't even that it was because he was super buff or a bad-boy type of guy; he was just really kind and rather funny (in a childish way); his personality (and body) was attractive and there simply wasn't anything she could do about it. He was a nerd of the highest degree; he spent all his hours researching on how to get her out of this old rickety house that she just so happened to be spending eternity in, and when he wasn't doing that, he was telling her of his adventures to faraway places and times that have yet to happed and those that already have happened.

He's had so many adventures, and here he is all cooped up in a manor house trying to bring a dead girl back to life with alien science. (If that doesn't scream 'Nerd', the she doesn't know what else does.)

And the friendliness of this ancient man is so pure, she doesn't think she'll ever see anything so extraordinary in her (after) life. But, the best thing about her ancient man of a roommate is that, for such a burdened being, he cannot handle any of her inappropriate humor. Honestly, the moment she even remotely hints at anything sexual, his elephant ears turn a bright blood red color and he quickly tries to change the subject to some sort of alien with twenty-seven brains and three hearts. (Which just causes her to laugh even harder, which usually earns her an agitated glare from the Doctor.)

Honestly, she just loves this man, not because he's the prettiest hunk of meat that she's ever seen, but because he's genuine and he understands what it's like to be hurting. He knows what it's like to be lost and to not belong and to just be an anomaly in general. And, maybe that's why, even know she knows she's a hopeless case, he gives her a little of his hope to hold onto.

Most of the time, she catches herself staring at him from a distance as he's reading with those funky little reading glasses of his. He's so into his reading that he hardly even notices that she's even in the same room as he (or that she's constantly wavering her gaze from his eyes – which are quite spectacular, if she says so herself – to his lips, which are more often than not pursed as he's muttering something to himself about the formula for relative dimensions or something like that.

And on the times that he does notice her spectral presence, he questions her about it, and she starts teasing him about his bowtie collection and he tells her to buzz off in the most immature of ways. She could swear that he's a five year old, not a thousand year old alien.

But that's okay; she doesn't care, because she thinks that she loves him. (Although, that is rather terrifying; she hasn't loved anyone, like, ever. She only tolerated her sister, and he parents, sure she liked them, but most of the time they treated her like a piece of crap.)

She knows that this little attraction she's got going on is only going to make her eternity a little more agonizing and lonely, but it's all about living in the now (that's the best way she can put it; yes, she knows that she is in fact not alive). This feeling is so fresh and she doesn't even know the right words to use to describe it that it makes her believe that she's just a normal girl; a normal, alive, human girl that this wonderful man from outer space has come to rescue and it makes her feel like the luckiest little thing in the universe.

And she knows that it is not likely that he'll ever reciprocate how she's feeling, but that's okay; it's all alright because when he's with her she feels like a million bucks; she hasn't felt this happy since her eight birthday (that was like twenty years ago.) Besides, she's dead and can't leave this stupid fucking house, and he's a one thousand year old alien; the likelihood of their relationship ever turning into something more is so preposterous that she can't help but laugh out loud in spite of herself.

He hears her and turns his head curiously in her direction.

"You okay, Clara?"

"Peachy keen, Doctor; just, you know, dead and all."

"Hey, that's why I'm here - To make you not dead anymore."

"Gee, thanks. Hopefully, my spirit won't get scattered all over oblivion and I'll become a living being again."

"Maybe if you were a bit more optimistic about things…" he begins, but stops because he knows that she's dead and she's trapped in a house that contains memories that she hates. He honestly can't really blame her for being so negative.

"I'm sorry," she says with an exasperated sigh, "It's just that sometimes I feel as if I'm never going to leave this place, and I know that you're trying really quite hard to get me out of here, but sometimes your efforts just seem so fruitless that I think that it would just be better if you to just get up and leave me here."

"Clara," she looks down as he says her name as if it's some type of endearment, "I came here because you sent me that message, because your subconscious screamed through the veil that you were in danger, and I'm not leaving until you are completely safe."

He steps closer to her and presses his lips to her forehead. She feels something similar to a blush creep up to her cheeks, but doesn't say anything as he removes his lips and envelopes her into a hug. She presses her face against he's chest and he tells her that it's alright, and that he was going to get her out of this house, even if it kills him.

And maybe this old man, who is loyal and kind, and more often than not, sad, can save her soul from this relic of a house and the in between that she is stuck in.

:::

* * *

**Hey guys, sorry for such the long wait for this chapter.**

**I honestly had no idea what to write for the longest time plus I was in a play which took up about 579679348% of my time, and I sort of lost a lil bit of inspiration for this.**

**So updates hopefully will be back to normal(ish) in the next few weeks.**

**thanks for sticking with me though the long wait and as always, please review, favorite and follow!**

**I really appreciate it.**

**bleuboxes**


	5. Chapter 5

He's been with her in this house for almost a year now, and they're no closer to getting her out of here then the day he entered.

She's just accepted the fact that she's going to be stuck here for the rest of her (after)life and continually urges the Doctor to haul his ass out of town with his magnificent time (and space!) machine. She doesn't think it's fair to him to be wasting his life on hers. Hell- she isn't even _alive_ anymore.

But he won't take it; he just won't listen to a word uttered from her mouth. He insists she needs to be saved; he truly believes that she is something special, and that's maybe what pains her the most. He honestly whole heartedly believes that she can be saved against whatever or whoever is holding her in this house.

He didn't grasp that she was beyond saving. She was a ghost; that was as dead and un-savable as it gets.

She just hates disappointing people; and she doesn't wasn't him to be disappointed by her unnatural ability to not leave this fucking house. She would do anything to be able to leave – to be alive and well and breathing again, but there is such a tiny margin for that ever coming true that she's just come to the fact that it's never going to happen.

That is, until a lowly Tuesday afternoon when she has this awfully strange ache in the left side of her head. It's like a migraine, she used to get them when she was a child, but she hadn't felt pain since she, well, died. And then she remembers why Oswin was such an intolerable human being.

Because Clara's parents told her she was a mistake; that it was only supposed to be Clara and no Oswin when she was just seven years old. (Bad parenting on her mother and fathers behalf. Honestly, who says that to a kid?)

And then she remembers what the video and star help thing is. Before Oswin was informed of her origin story, they had been inseparable, best friends. Clara had suggested one day when she was about six (Oswin would have been five) that they make a movie. Oswin was the camera man and Clara played the roles off all the characters (which was a challenge). Oswin often took to calling Clara 'Star' from that moment forward, or well at least until their shitty ass parents decided to tell their youngest child that she really wasn't supposed to be here.

She needs to tell the Doctor; this is important. This is a lead! The first in a year.

"Doctor! Doctor!" she yells, but there is no response. Maybe he's sleeping. She floats up to his room and through his wall; unfortunately, there is no passed out intergalactic being on the bed. There is, however, light coming from the bathroom at the end of the hall, so she figures that's where he must be.

She doesn't think about what she's doing until she's in the bathroom with the Time Lord, who is in nothing but his boxers (which are covered in bow ties? Gods, he's peculiar.) And she would have blushed if she was alive and had blood pumping through her body.

"Sorry!" she blurts, covering her eyes. Thought she isn't sure why, it isn't like he's naked or anything; just severely lacking in the clothing depart meant (not that she minds), "I just needed to tell you something important and it couldn't wait and I was just so preoccupied with thinking about telling you I didn't bother myself with the tiny extravagant detail that you might be severely under dressed."

She feels so embarrassed, more so because of her silly stupid little girl ramblings and her attraction towards him rather than catching him in his ridiculous underwear.

"Bow ties? Really?"

"I'll have you know that bow ties _are_ cool, Miss Oswald."

"Yeah, okay. Maybe in your end of the galaxy." She rolls her eyes, "Look, Doctor, I have information that seems to pertain to the reason why I'm stuck in this god awful house so if you could maybe stop distracting me and put some clothes on –"

"Distracting you, eh?" he says with a little self-satisfied smile that she wants to punch right off his face.

"Not like that!" she says all too quickly and he gives her a look, challenging her thoughts, she scowls in reply. "Shut up."

"Whatever you say, Clara."

"Just get dressed and meet me downstairs."

"You sure you don't want to look at me anymore."

"Do the word a favor and get those pompous bow ties out of sight."

"Wow. Harsh."

* * *

She rushes downstairs quickly, thinking of how to phrase her discoveries and her new found sympathy of Oswin. (Gosh, relationships were so complicated.) She also happened to be thinking about how the Doctor, who shows about the same amount of emotion as a brick, was flirting with her. It wasn't very good flirting, he really needs work (she's gladly volunteer to help him with that among other things.) but it was still a flirt, and that's what matters.

At least that's what matters to her. (And it shouldn't. There are more pressing matters at hand than flirtatious bantering)

But it was a step; he must have had a little interest in her! Maybe her case wasn't as hopeless as it led on to be. Maybe she could have that life; the cosmos would be her back yard and his space ship would be their blue Victorian home. It seemed so lovely and unmistakably plausible that she couldn't help but feel a little optimistic.

Who knows? Maybe everything would turn out alright after all. (It left room for thought, at least.)

She heard the creaks of the aching floorboards of the stairs as her Doctor took his grand old time walking down them. He sure knew how to simultaneously enrage and mystify her. It was starting to get a little aggravating.)

"You said you knew something about why you're here?" he asked while sitting on the couch looking curious.

She relayed to him what she remembered earlier; how her parents decided that they wanted Oswin to feel unwanted and unloved. She told him of how before that incident Oswin and she were close; and Oswin would call her Star as a nickname. And how she called Oswin 'Video' because she refused to be called the camera man. (She was always a little bit difficult.)

He stood up with a smile on his face and picked her up, whirling her around in the air.

"This is _something_, Clara! This is good! We have a lead! I'll get you out of here in no time.

She only hoped that he wouldn't drop her (she didn't want his hands to leave her hips even thought this was probably the least appropriate time to be thinking of a blossoming romance. Goddamn novels.) and that he was right.

How she desperately wanted things to be going right for once.

* * *

**Hello friends! So it's been a while… (Like three months... yikes I'm sorry)**

**I just haven't had the time or the energy or motivation to write this story. (Also known as writers block. I'm literally making up the plot as I go along and that's probably not a very good idea.)**

**Please review (if you liked it or want to kill me for not updating since MAY) and favorite and follow.**

**I'll give you virtual apple pie. (BE MY FRIENDS I LOVE YOU ALL OKAY!)**

**See you soon (hopefully)**

**ALSO NOTE that I'm spending most of my attention on my Harry Potter/ Supernatural crossover, so this probably won't be updated as frequently as you (and I) would like it to be. ANDDD I'm working on my one shot series, so if any of you happen to be waiting for another one shot, its coming I promise. (I just need a song to INSPIRE ME!**

**Much love,**

**Bleuboxes.**


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